WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE – TAPES 0D0175-0D0177 BERTRAND GOLDSCHMIDT [1]

Early Nuclear Research

Goldschmidt:

You want me to tell you my
name? I'm Bertrand Goldschmidt.

Interviewer:

AND DURING THE WAR YEARS YOU
WERE, IF YOU COULD JUST DESCRIBE WHAT YOU WERE DOING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR,
PROFESSIONALLY...

Goldschmidt:

I'm the last man that Marie
Curie...to discover radium had a few months before her death in 1933. And I made a Ph.D. as a
chemist at the Curie Laboratory just before the war. And I was lucky enough to be able to see
without participating in any way the discovery of fission. Because as you know, the discovery of
fission is a consequence of the discovery of artificial radioactivity, which was done by Irene
Curie, the daughter of Marie Curie and her husband, Frederic Joliet-Curie. This goes on in 1944,
and, or '34, and they got the Nobel Prize next year for the discovery. From that discovery on,
Fermi and his colleagues in Rome studied if one could make artificial radio elements by
bombarding natural substances, natural elements with neutrons. And he found out that usually one
made an element which was the next in the periodical classification and he had the idea to see
what would happen if one bombarded uranium, which was the heaviest, and the 92nd and last
element of this classification of elements from their weight, the first one being hydrogen, the
last one being uranium. So he thought one would be able to produce a radioactive twin, a
radioactive isotope of the element following the 92nd. But in reality, he found a mixture of
radio elements and there's nobody in his team were chemists. And so, he abandoned the work,
which was taken over by a team in Berlin, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, who were two old timers of
radioactivity. They'd worked together since the beginning of the century. And they were able to
identify quite a number of radioactive elements further than uranium. When they were alive in
Paris, Madame Joliot Curie, one of the co-discoverer of artificial radioactivity, thought they
were wrong, and she tried to show they were wrong and identify only one of these elements. And
she gave three identities, different of the ones given by the Germans. Each time she changed her
mind, but each time she irratated more the Germans, because they were, they believed they were
right. But this contradiction of Madame Curie finally put the Germans on the right track and
that's how, by this competition and collaboration between a team in Paris, a team in Rome and
another one in Berlin, fission was discovered in December, 1938, exactly, barely three months
after the Munich Crisis, and eight months before the beginning of the war. I mean this is one of
the most extraordinary coincidences in the story of civilization, because should fission had
been discovered a few years earlier, perhaps Hitler would have found the bomb the first. And
should fission have been discovered only a few months later, the bomb wouldn't have been ready
to finish the war. And one can't visualize what would be a world where the bomb hadn't been
tried and probably would have been tried either during the Korean War or perhaps, when the
Russians would have tried to invade the whole of Europe. Or to conquer the whole of Europe.
Nobody can know what would be the world if the bomb had been found only six months or nine
months after the end of the war.

Interviewer:

THAT IS AN INCREDIBLE
COINCIDENCE OF POLITICS AND SCIENCE. I'M GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN, WE'RE GETTING A SLIGHTLY
DIFFERENT SHOT HERE. IN THE '30S, PEOPLE WERE INVESTIGATING THE NATURE OF THE ATOM BOMBARDING
VARIOUS ELEMENTS WITH NEUTRONS IN THE INTEREST OF PURE SCIENCE. THERE WERE, THEY WERE NOT
LOOKING FOR ATOMIC WEAPONS...

Goldschmidt:

Naturally not. But, one of the
men, the first men who understood the, what was radioactivity, the phenomenon of radioactivity,
was an Englishman called Soddy. And already in 1908, when he understood that radioactivity was
an internal phenomenon, a disintegration of the atoms, a spontaneous disintegration of the atom,
he had the idea that there was tremendous amounts of energy in that, in the nucleus of the atom.
He also thought that this could produce radioactive bombs and it also could produce energy very
cheaply. And this is 1908. And there was the first known science fiction writer, H.G. Wells got
inspired from the publication of Soddy, was giving conferences all over the world. And he wrote
a book called The World Set Free, where you, where he, and this was written in
1913, when he predicts the discovery of artificial radioactivity in December of '33 and it took
place in February of '34. He predicts a nuclear war where cities are going to be destroyed by
radioactive bombs. He predicts it in '56. And then after that, there's a peace conference in
Italy, at the Lake Majorie, and after that there's an idyllic world where there's no more wars
because of the consequences of that terrible nuclear war, and where everybody has a happy life
because energy costs nothing and people travel in nuclear planes. So all that had been, was of
science fiction. People knew that if one was able to reach this the energy inside the nucleus of
the atom, there would be tremendous potentialities. And a man like Szilard, who had such an
important role, as you know, it's Szilard who was a man who really alerted the first, President
Roosevelt by the intermediary of Einstein, Szilard had made, had even taken secret patents in
1934, not on uranium, but on possible chain reactions to produce energy. And always he was
thinking of weapons. So, it wasn't quite novel, but it was something which one thought it would
be one day possible but the invention that would render it possible, the discovery of fission,
was only made in December of '38.

Interviewer:

SO IN THE '30S THERE WAS LOTS
OF INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION AS, BEFORE THIS SECRECY STARTED TO...

Goldschmidt:

Yes, because fundamental
science was completely open. And it was a race. And even in the first months of following the
discovery of fission the publications were, one would bring the, for instance Joliot, with two
colleagues called Halban and Kowarski, were the first to prove that when the phenomenon of
fission produces, produced by a neutron, the bursting of the atom produces more neutrons. And
they, Kowarski went to carry, to bring the...at the plane, at the airport of the because it was,
there was a publication very known called NATURE, which published every week the issue and
published always things which were of actuality. So he brought the publication to the airport,
and it was published in NATURE and the week afterwards, Fermi and Szilard produced the same,
published the same results. But they had won by a week. So it was completely open. Naturally in
those days, as I was telling you Szilard was always seeing things in advanced Szilard was
obsessed by the rise and of Hitler and Szilard wrote Joliot saying, "If there's more than one
neutron produced in fission, there's a possibility of chain reaction. This would probably allow
us to produce tremendously dangerous weapons, and these weapons would still be more dangerous in
the hands of certain countries." Which he meant naturally Germany. And his letter is the first
time what one calls today non-proliferation, because non-proliferation means that the weapons
are less dangerous in the hands of the countries who have them than in the countries who haven't
got them yet.

Interviewer:

...WHAT WAS THE CONTROVERSY
IN THE LATE '30S ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT TO PUBLISH RESULTS OF RESEARCH THAT WAS GOING ON, BOTH IN
THE UNITED STATES AND IN EUROPE...

Goldschmidt:

I wouldn't say there was a
controversy. You see, Szilard took on himself to write Joliot and suggest that we should stop
publishing. And Joliot thought it was completely impractical, because who would be sure that the
Danes, the Germans, the Italians everybody had been involved in this history, and to have all
scientists...to him seemed completely impractical. Especially in fundamental science where
publication had always been completely open. But to himself, Joliot, after a few months when he
realized that all this was going to pass from the laboratory to tremendous applications—either
the production of energy or explosives--then he was the first, he was also ready not to publish
and he took secret patents...in May '39, so about three months after Szilard's lecture that he
had refused to buy it.

Interviewer:

LET ME ASK YOU AGAIN JUST TO
MAKE SURE WE HAVE IT IN A USABLE PIECE, WHEN SZILARD WROTE TO REQUEST THAT HE STOP PUBLISHING,
WHAT WAS JOLIET'S REACTION?

Goldschmidt:

Joliet's reaction was that it
was impracticable , because if he had stopped, nothing proved that the British, the Germans or
the Italians or whatever laboratory would stop publishing. It seems that it was impossible to
obtain a worldwide pronunciation to publication.

Wartime Applications of Atomic Fission

Interviewer:

WHEN THE WAR STARTED, WHAT
WERE THE FRENCH THINKING ABOUT WAR TIME POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS OF ATOMIC FISSION?

Goldschmidt:

The patent Joliot took in May
'39 so, nearly five months before the start of the war, concerned both the production of energy
and a possible explosive. But, by the time the war started, Joliot had the feeling, and the
Germans fortunately had the same feeling that it would be easier to produce energy in a
controlled way, than an explosive, an explosion in an uncontrolled way. And they were aiming
toward an, a submarine engine. But they always had in the back of their mind that an explosion
was possible, but less easily.

Interviewer:

SO WHAT WHY DID THE BRITISH
COME TO THE OPPOSITE CONCLUSION?

Goldschmidt:

The British came to the
opposite conclusion because of the brilliant work done by Frisch, who by the way was the nephew
of Lise Meitner, who had discovered fission with Otto Hahn and Rudolf Peierls, both Jewish
refugees who had left Germany from, for England. And they made a memorandum proving that perhaps
it was one kilo of U-235, you could have an explosion of tremendous power.

Interviewer:

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN TO RESPOND A
LITTLE MORE BRIEFLY, AT THE SAME TIME THAT THE FRENCH AND GERMANS DECIDED THAT A CONTROLLED
REACTION WAS MORE POSSIBLE, THAT THE BRITISH CAME TO THE OPPOSITE CONCLUSION, COULD YOU...SAY
BRIEFLY BECAUSE...

Goldschmidt:

Yes...the first who had the
idea that if one, it would be possible, and possible in a limited number of years to produce an
explosive which would have a tremendous power was Peierls and Frisch in Britain, by the way two
German Jewish refugee scientists.

Interviewer:

IF YOU COULD START JUST BY
SAYING, "ALTHOUGH PHYSICISTS IN GERMANY AND FRANCE THOUGHT THAT A CONTROLLED REACTION FOR POWER
WOULD BE EASIER..."

Goldschmidt:

Yes, although independently
the scientists in France and in Germany believed that what was the easiest to be reached was the
production of energy, on the contrary, in Britain, two German refugee scientists, Frisch and
Peierls thought that it would be easier and quicker to make an explo- an explosive and a bomb.
And this point of view was later adopted also by the Americans.

Scientific Research in America

Interviewer:

COULD YOU TELL ME BRIEFLY HOW
YOU CAME TO LEAVE FRANCE AND GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND SEEK TO WORK WITH FERMI?

Goldschmidt:

I was, I had a university
position and in October, 1940, the Vichy Government took anti-Semitic laws which prohibited Jews
to have a teaching position or Jews to be civil servants: So, I lost my job in December of '40.
I managed to leave France to Martinique, West Indies, and from there, I came to America. And in
America, I rather quickly got in touch with Fermi and Szilard, and Fermi wanted me to come and
work with him on the purification of uranium. They needed very pure uranium to try to make a
chain reaction with graphite. And all the summer of '41, I was always supposed to next week
start working at Columbia University, and by the month of September . Dean Peagrum of Columbia
called me to say that I wasn't, it wasn't possible to hire me, that they weren't allowed to take
anymore foreigners. I believed that I didn't get my clearance. So then I joined the Free French.
And the Free French offered me to the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
By July 1942, I was hired by the DSIR, The British Department of Scientific and Industrial
Research. As I was in America, to avoid sending a chemist over from England, they sent me to
Chicago, where Fermi and Szilard had moved, and funny enough I came as a British representative
in the...which hadn't wanted me, who hadn't been allowed to hire me, and nine months before as a
Frenchman.

[END OF TAPE 0D0175]

Interviewer:

I'D LIKE TO TRY TO ASK YOU TO
SAY IN A FAIRLY BRIEF WAY TO GET ACROSS THE IRONY OF THAT SITUATION WHERE YOU COULD NOT BE HIRED
AT FIRST IN NEW YORK, BUT THEN BY GOING THROUGH THE BRITISH YOU ENDED UP GOING TO
CHICAGO...

Goldschmidt:

When I arrived in New York, I
contacted Fermi and Szilard and they told me that I was just the kind of man they were looking
for as a chemist to study the purification of uranium. And for nearly three months, I was always
going to start working the next week with them, and then by the end of September '41, they told
me they hadn't got the right to hire me. They couldn't hire me. And finally, the irony of the
story is then I joined the Free French forces. They offered me to the British, and after six
months, I was taken by the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and sent as
the British representative to the American group which hadn't been able to hire me as a private
Frenchman.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU EXPLAIN BRIEFLY THE
WORK YOU DID THEN IN CHICAGO AND THE EXCITEMENT OF ISOLATING PLUTONIUM FOR THE FIRST TIME. MAYBE
YOU COULD ADD A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLUTONIUM...

Goldschmidt:

You see, I was lucky to work
with Glenn Seaborg who was just thirty years old, and was the head of the chemical team and a
man who had discovered plutonium. And what was so exciting that during the time I was there,
Seaborg and his team and I participated to the work, I was training there, isolated the first
quantity visible and the first quantity weighable of the first man-made element. And this was
really what the alchemists of the Middle Ages had tried in vane many centuries ago.

Interviewer:

AND WHAT WAS THE IMPORTANCE
OF PLUTONIUM AS REGARDING THE BOMB PROJECT. HOW WAS IT...DIFFERENT FROM PURIFIED URANIUM?

Goldschmidt:

By that time, one knew that
there was two possible explosives. Either the uranium-235, which is a fraction of all uranium.
Very difficult to separate from the more abundant uranium-238. Or, plutonium, because when...had
isolated very small amounts of plutonium, physical measurements had shown that it had the same
property allowing it to be an explosive than uranium-235. Therefore one knew that if one could
isolate plutonium, if one could produce enough plutonium in a reactor, one would have a bomb
material.

Interviewer:

SO REALIZING WHAT, THAT
PLUTONIUM HAS SOME OF THE SAME PROPERTIES, IS IT EASIER. IS THAT THE IDEA? IS IT CHEAPER OR
EASIER?

Goldschmidt:

It was another way. It was,
if you want...

Interviewer:

COULD YOU START AGAIN.

Goldschmidt:

If you want, this is the
characteristic of the work of the Manhattan district for the ( ), that every single path was
explored, and u-235, the uranium was one path, and the plutonium was another path. When I met,
when I arrived in Chicago, I met Arthur, I was met by, I mean I was introduced to Arthur
Compton, who told me that they were working on a bomb and on radioactive poisons... They were
both would be ready in about three years of time. Then yet you know that the radioactive poison
was considered by the Army as too similar to poison gas, and was abandoned. But the
extraordinary thing that I was told three years by Compton in July of '42, and the first test
took place in July of '45.

Interviewer:

ANOTHER IRONIC THING TO ME,
WHY IS IT THAT RADIOACTIVE POISON IS SOMEHOW LESS MORAL OR MORE EVIL THAN ATOMIC
EXPLOSIVES?

Goldschmidt:

...show you that one didn't
realize the order of magnitude in those days. I mean, one knew it would be an explosive much
more powerful than classical ones, but nobody had in mind the abominable hydrogen bomb, which is
already a thousand times more dangerous. I mean, today, we think in hydrogen bombs. The atomic
bomb was only equivalent to a thousand bombard--a thousand plane bombardment. It wasn't on a
different order of magnitude. And one didn't know even if it would be as powerful as that. While
the radioactive poison had something insidious which resembled the poison gas which had been
forbidden by the Geneva Convention, that by the way, the Americans hadn't signed, I think.

US Monopoly on Nuclear Research

Interviewer:

HERE'S SOMETHING I WANTED TO
ASK YOU ABOUT. GENERAL GROVES HAD SAID THAT AS FAR AS HE WAS CONCERNED, THAT RUSSIA WAS THE MAIN
ENEMY AND THAT THE MANHATTAN PROJECT WAS CONDUCTED ON THAT BASIS. WAS THAT KIND OF ATTITUDE
EVIDENT TO YOU AT ALL IN YOUR DAYS?

Goldschmidt:

Not at all. Not at all. I
mean, when I spoke of the bomb I think with Compton, or later with my American colleagues, I
always had the impression that the first bomb would be used for Japan, and the second one for
Germany. If the Germans had been still in the war. And the best proof that it is what I
believed, is that when General de Gaulle came through Ottawa, the eleventh of July, 1944, one
year before the bomb was used, we, three of us, the three Frenchmen, who were in the project, in
the Anglo-Canadian project, asked to see alone, and secretly the General. We saw him three
minutes, and we told him that there was a new weapon being produced in America, that this weapon
would be used first against Japan, and if the Germans were still in the war, secondly against
Germany. That not only this weapon would allow the allies to win the war, but it would
completely transform the world after the war, and therefore that France shouldn't lose a minute
and start as quickly as possible to work in this field, where it was one of the priorities until
the invasion of France. And I think that the fact that the French Atomic Energy Commission was
created in October '45, was the first civilian commission created in the world, was a little bit
due to that interview with, we had with de Gaulle, and which was against our secrecy pledge with
the British.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE ATTITUDE OF THE
MANHATTAN PROJECT AUTHORITIES AND TOWARD YOU, TOWARD THE FRENCH? WHEN YOU, IN EARLY 1945, YOU
WANTED TO TRAVEL FROM MONTREAL TO PARIS, AND THERE WAS SOME QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER THAT WOULD BE
ALLOWED. WHAT WAS THE CONCERN ON THE PART OF GENERAL GROVES AND OTHERS?

Goldschmidt:

No you see, the French
problem only took an importance in 19, end of '44, '45, when we wanted to go back to France and
continue our...in France, because, during the war, Joliot who had stayed in France and had a
part in the underground, had become a Communist. And so General Groves was very upset that
French project could be led by a Communist who could perhaps speak to the Russians. While I
never believed that Joliet gave any secrets to the Russians. But that was why the French became
a pain in the neck or a headache for General Groves. Furthermore, France was not a party to the
Tripartite Agreement, which had been signed in Quebec in between mainly American and the
British, with Canadians as junior partners.

Interviewer:

IF GENERAL GROVES WAS
CONCERNED THAT JOLIOT WAS A COMMUNIST, WASN'T THERE SOME EVIDENCE THEN THAT HIS MAIN FEAR WAS
REALLY THE RUSSIANS?

Goldschmidt:

I, by that time,
surely.

Interviewer:

COULD I ASK YOU TO SAY THAT
IN A COMPLETE SENTENCE.

Goldschmidt:

You see, I think this feeling
of non-proliferation that we discussed so much today, was already present during the war. When
the Americans in, end of, early of 1943, decided to stop collaborating with the British and the
Canadians, it was because they felt there was such potentialities, either toward energy or
toward the bomb that they didn't want to share it with anybody else. Then later, because of
Churchill, energy, they did share it with Canada and Britain, who were junior partners. But they
had no intention to share it with anybody else. And they didn't want to share it with France
which was an ally, and they still less wanted to share it with Russia, which was an ally during
the war which probably wouldn't continue to be an ally after the war.

Goldschmidt:

TECHNICAL DISCUSSION.

Interviewer:

DID YOU HAVE A SENSE DURING
THE WAR THAT ONCE THE WAR WAS OVER, THERE WAS GOING TO, THAT AN ARMS RACE BETWEEN THE TWO
SUPERPOWERS WAS GOING TO ENSUE? NIELS BOHR TALKED ABOUT THAT, OTHER PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT IT, WAS
THAT A PREVALENT NOTION?

Goldschmidt:

I'd like to, reply completely
differently. I'd like to say something which is quite different than. We started work in Canada,
this Anglo-Canadian outfit, just at the time where collaboration stopped, early 1943, in between
the Americans and the Anglo-Canadians. And we became very anti-American because of that. We felt
that the Americans wanted to have a monopoly. And I wouldn't be astonished that if a man like
Alan Nunn May, who was the first British to become a spy for the Soviets, I think the fact of
the non-collaboration with the Americans probably encouraged him. Probably, he was a Communist,
but he was probably feeling that America shouldn't be the only one to have that.

Interviewer:

BUT THERE WAS NO CONCERN ON
YOUR PART OR AMONG PEOPLE THAT YOU WORKED WITH THAT AFTER THE WAR THIS WOULD LEAD TO AN ARMS
RACE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION?

Goldschmidt:

You know, nobody knew if the
bomb would work. And how powerful it would be. All these questions naturally came to our mind
after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we were working in the lab, we were not so involved with the
bomb ourselves, we were a little bit on a sideway track. And we were not obsessed at all by
those problems at that time. If you were a man like Szilard who was always thinking years in
advance, or Niels Bohr who was a genius in his kind, it's normal that they thought of it. But we
who were let's say in the kitchen, there was no reason for us to worry about this problem. We
were more worried, that say a Frenchman, what could France do when it recovered, when it was
able to be freed from the Germans.

Interviewer:

YOU MENTIONED AFTER
HIROSHIMA. I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU HOW YOU HEARD ABOUT HIROSHIMA AND WHAT YOU'RE REACTION WAS AT THE
TIME.

Goldschmidt:

We heard about Hiroshima the
day it took place like everybody. And we were, I think we had heard about the test, the
successful test in ah, in July, or there'd been some rumors. And we were very pleased because we
felt that this enormous effort had been, hadn't been wasted.

Interviewer:

GO AHEAD.

Goldschmidt:

And for, Hiroshima meant for
us the end of an ordeal. I mean, it was because of the war that I left France and left my
family, some members of my family and gone to America and it was everything was finished. We
would be able to, the war was over, we'd be able to go back to France. We weren't thinking of an
arms race in those days.

Interviewer:

WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO
SUMMARIZE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRANCE, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM DURING THE
WAR YEARS? IN TERMS OF WORK ON ATOMIC ENERGY?

Goldschmidt:

I think the way to summarize
it is that there were no relation with France, because there was a few French individuals
working with the British. But the French did, didn't represent France. They had been
individually seconded to the British, and they were dressed like Australians and New Zealanders;
there were some uh, Czechs or people, of German or Scan.... origin, they were just
working...with the British; we were not we were not represent, we were French, but... we were
not, a French unit, if you want — a French group.

Interviewer:

BUT THE FRENCH DID, CERTAINLY
AT THE BEGINNING, CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROJECT.

Goldschmidt:

Oh, there's no doubt; there's
no doubt even that the fact that Joliot contacted the Belgians, were the monopoly of the
production of uranium, or quasi-monopoly of production of uranium, before the war, had a
tremendous importance, because if Joliot hadn't contacted the Belgians, the Belgian firm
wouldn't have bought, in 1940 -- as early as 1940 — tons and tons of very rich ore, which was
stopped in a warehouse on Staten Island for two years before the day when miraculously they were
available to the Manhattan Project in 1942. So we really had an influence, and furthermore, two
of Joliot's colleagues, von Halban and Kowarski, left with the world's stock of heavy water that
we purchased from Norway, left in July... in June, 1940, for England, and they, their part in
the writing of the MAUD Report was quite important, and as you know the MAUD, the MAUD
Committee's report was a booster of the American effort. So if you want, indirectly the French
effort contributed to the American effort.

Interviewer:

DURING THE WAR, DO YOU THINK
THAT THE ATTITUDES THAT EMERGED BETWEEN THE ALLIES — THE UNITED STATES, THE UNITED KINGDOM,
FRANCE, RUSSIA —DO YOU THINK THESE ATTITUDES LED TO THE FACT THAT THE BRITISH HAD TO DEVELOP A
WEAPON ON THEIR OWN, AS DID THE FRENCH... AND THERE WAS NO SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE BY THE UNITED
STATES?

Goldschmidt:

There's no doubt that the
policy of secrecy, and of monopoly, of uranium... was started during the war, and it was... in
November, 1945, there was a first summit conference with Atlee, Truman, and Mackenzie King, and
they decided to keep the secrecy, and to keep the monopoly to purchase all uranium available.
And that was... anti-, it was essentially against a possible Russian project, Soviet project;
but it also... obliged France, other countries, to go all alone. If you want, we will reduce the
nuclear potency by the decisions taken immediately after the war, in between Truman, Atlee, and
Mackenzie King, who said, "As long as there's no international control, we will not give out
information or let countries have uranium." And if we hadn't found uranium on the French
national ground, we wouldn't have been able to have an independent effort.

[END OF TAPE 0D0176]

Bikini Test and Baruch Plan

Interviewer:

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ATTENDANCE
AT THE BIKINI TEST?

Goldschmidt:

It was an ex — You can't...
understand the Bikini test in considering what todays attitude of the public toward the bomb.
The best proof is that I was invited because there was two marshals for each country of the
Security Council invited. And when I came back to France, I was famous for three months because
I had seen an atomic explosion. I was invited to lunch and dinner by people I'd never heard or
seen before simply because I had been at Bikini. And it was a tremendous happening. There wasn't
at all the revulsion there is against the bomb today. And I gave a lecture on Bikini, the only
time in my life, where people had to stay out, at the Sorbonne, because there were so many
people attending. And one can't imagine that today where there is — The fact that the American's
test in Nevada is considered a little bit as a crime against humanity.

Interviewer:

AT THE TIME, THE BIKINI TEST
COINCIDED WITH THE DISCUSSION OF THE BARUCH PLAN IN THE UNITED NATIONS. WAS THERE ANY FEELING
THAT CONTINUING TO TEST ATOMIC WEAPONS WAS GOING AGAINST...

Goldschmidt:

Yes. That was very
unfortunate...

Interviewer:

IF YOU COULD WAIT TILL I STOP
AND THEN RESPOND.

Goldschmidt:

Yes. That was very
unfortunate. And you know, Bikini was simply because the Navy had nothing to do with the whole
Manhattan project. It was the Army who had done the project. It was the Air Force which
had...dropped the bomb over Japan. And the Navy wanted just some prestige.

Interviewer:

I'D LIKE YOU TO EXPRESS THE
IDEA THAT THE BIKINI TEST OCCURRED DURING THE TIME OF INTERNATIONAL CONTROL NEGOTIATIONS.

Goldschmidt:

Yes. There's no doubt that
this was unfortunate that this test, the Bikini test took place just at the time the first
negotiation at the UN on the control of the Bomb. It did give the impression, and by the way the
choice of Bernard Baruch for this, as the American representative for these negotiations was
also a bad choice. It did give the impression that the Americans were really negotiating it from
a position of strength. And this wasn't surely the way to... have the Russians abide.

Interviewer:

IF YOU WOULDN'T MIND SAYING
THAT AGAIN WITHOUT THE ASIDE ABOUT BARUCH.

Goldschmidt:

Yes. It was unfortunate that
the Bikini test took place exactly in the same time that the first meetings of the...United
Nations on the negotiations for the international control of atomic energy. It was an
unfortunate coincidence. And it was due to the fact that the Navy wanted to have some prestige
out of the bomb that they didn't have during the war, because it was the Army which had run the
Manhattan Project and it was the Air Force which had delivered the bombs over Japan.

Interviewer:

SO HOW DID THAT MAKE THE US
LOOK IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD AT THAT POINT?

Goldschmidt:

By the time one was
discussing the atomic international control, it looked like it's the Americans were not very
serious in their proposals.

Interviewer:

AND WHAT ABOUT BARUCH AND THE
BARUCH PLAN? DID IT SEEM TO YOU THAT THERE WAS ANY HOPE THAT THIS PLAN WOULD BE ADOPTED?

Goldschmidt:

You see, the plan would have
meant the opening up of Russia. And that was a...inconceivable. It's still nearly unconceivable
today. It was unconceivable then. And Baruch was surely not the best...choice and many people in
America thought that -- to negotiate with the Russians.

Interviewer:

DID HAVE ANY SENSE AT THAT
TIME—-THAT WAS A REAL LOSS, THAT IT WAS A REAL OPPORTUNITY TO PUT A CAP ON THE
PROLIFERATION...

Goldschmidt:

You see the Baruch Plan,
which is really the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan, was an extraordinary revolution and were only
conceivable if there was a world government. It was a kind of miniature world government in the
field of atomic energy. I don't think it was really a non-start. What one doesn't know is that
in June '47 the Russians made a proposal which was refused by the majority, by the Americans, I
myself participated to the writing of the paper against the Russian proposal. And now 30 40
years later nearly, if one looks at that Russian proposal it's exactly the Non-Proliferation
Treaty of 1970. If we had accepted the Russian proposal then there probably wouldn't be the
number of bombs which existed. But this is something that we--people have completely overlooked
and I had only found it out recently and published it in a--in a disarmament conference done for
the Hundredth Anniversary of Niels Bohr in Copenhagen last year.

Interviewer:

IN 1945, WHEN THE BOMB WAS
FIRST USED IN JAPAN, DID YOU HAVE THE FEELING THAT THIS WAS A NEW ERA...THAT THE ATOMIC WEAPON
MADE IT NECESSARY FOR NATIONS TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT WAR?

Goldschmidt:

Yes. As I told you when we
saw de Gaulle, General de Gaulle, one year before Hiroshima we told him that if the bomb was
successful and we believed it would be that the whole world politics would be different
afterwards, that we had realized that it was a weapon which would have a considerable importance
in world politics and would upset if you want the equilibrium as we knew it before. We were
convinced that the Americans, having the bomb would be tremendously popul--and personally I
believe that it's thanks to the bomb that Russia didn't overrun politically the whole of
Europe.